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Southwestern Ontario drug stores targets of hits

The targets were small-town pharmacies sure to have lots of addictive painkillers and few employees.

Thamesford, Ingersoll, Dresden, Zurich — all were easy pickings for two crews of unsophisticated OxyContin robbers in 2010 and 2012.

Common to both was Dale Minielly, 30, of Forest, who, after he was arrested in 2010 and put under bail conditions, was still drawn to more robberies in Huron County.

Thursday in London, Minielly pleaded guilty to seven charges including three robberies in Thamesford and Dresden, two more in Zurich, an attempted heist in Bayfield and bail breaches.

His brother-in-law, Shane Asselin, 29, also of Forest, pleaded guilty to one count of robbery for standing disguised and as look-out in the Thamesford heist.

“I’m just sorry,” Asselin said before he was sentenced.

Minielly will be sentenced later in February. Asselin, characterized as “a follower” and without a drug addiction, was given a 90-day sentence to be served on weekends plus probation on top of the year he’s spent at the Elgin-Middlesex Detention Centre.

Calling Oxycontin, “a scourge,” Superior Court Justice Thomas Heeney said he couldn’t grant Asselin the time-served sentence his lawyer wanted because the crimes involved the drug. Instead, he crafted a sentence that will allow Asselin to return to work.

The Thamesford robbery May 21, 2010 was the first described in a laundry list of crimes by assistant Crown attorney John Hanbidge.

Minielly and Asselin, both wearing baseball caps, sunglasses and work gloves so not to leave fingerprints, walked into the Pharmasave in Thamesford demanding OxyContin. The clerk handed over 232 tablets.

They were seen leaving in a dark blue pickup with distinctive decals that belonged to the parents of Geoff Harper, of Forest. Harper is now serving a three-year sentence for his part in robberies with Minielly.

Hanbidge said the Crown, because of a lack of evidence, wasn’t prosecuting Minielly for two robberies in Chatham-Kent and Strathroy-Caradoc and an attempted robbery in Ilderton. But, he said. Minielly and Harper did rob the Zurich Pharmacy wearing ball caps and sunglasses June 9, 2010 and that time showed the clerks a knife.

Two days later, they hit the MacTavish Pharmacy in Dresden with the same disguises. Minielly had a knife and came away with 400 OxyContin tablets.

Hanbidge said the men would rob the pharmacies wearing full beards, then shave down to goatees afterward.

Minielly was back in the drug-store robbery business Feb. 7, 2012, acting as driver as two other men looked for drugs in Bayfield and Zurich — the same pharmacy he’d robbed in 2010.

This time, the two other robbers, Wayne Bullock and Darcy Lockery, also from Forest, passed a note to the pharmacists demanding OxyContin or Fentanyl. They also had a knife.

There were no drugs at the Bayfield pharmacy, but they were successful in Zurich. A boy on his bike saw the men escape and alerted police.